I can’t resist season preview magazines. NBA, NFL, college, MLB, I’m a sucker for those thick annual issues that I’ll pore through in a couple of sittings before the season, then rarely open during the season. (Speaking of, keep an eye out for Dime #53, our NBA/college/high school preview issue.)
Every few years, one of the preview mags will do a feature where they create the “perfect” player for their sport, Dr. Frankenstein-style. Read More »
It would have been assumed that the young Bobcats were not headed in the right direction after drafting both Adam Morrison and Alexis Ajinca in the first round of the draft. But when Sheldon Williams drops a near double-double on you, things really aren’t looking too good. Read More »
This will not be your typical NBA recap, it is simply my random observations and thoughts on the game. These observations were made in real time watching the game, if you have random observations, comments or questions during any NBA game tweet it to @dimemag and I will choose the best to include in my random observations. Read More »
While the 2006 NBA Draft is not considered one of the NBA’s finest, it is still loaded with some potential NBA stars. And even in a time of financial crisis and thrifty spending owing to the Summer of 2010, it’s time to pay up or shut up before the deadline to sign any of these guys to a contract extension hits on October 31.
Light schedule of only four NBA preseason games on a day where the biggest (rumored) news was that the replacement refs probably won’t make it to the regular season due to the League being close to an agreement with the union guys. We hit on this a little bit yesterday, but it’s funny how so many media and fans are bashing the replacements as if they’ve been so much worse than the regulars. We even heard one TV talking head praise the return of the “real” refs, because the ones they’ve had in the preseason are obviously fake refs. How long will it take for NBA players to start complaining about every call again and for the rest of us to remember we thought the “real” refs stunk at their jobs, too? About 24 minutes into the first game? … Read More »
No team will ever admit it — not even the OKC Thunder — but some NBA uniforms are just plain ugly. From the ’90s Nets (tie-dye?) to the original Vancouver Grizzlies to the Wizards’ gold/black tragedy, there have been some bad ones along the way. And with their bright orange base and the checkered-flag side panel for “special” occasions, the Charlotte Bobcats have cracked the list since their inception. Yesterday, however, the ‘Cats unveiled their new unis, the one Gerald Wallace is wearing in the photo. No more bright orange overload; it’s blue for the road and white at home. (The orange is “avant garde” according to the press release.) Read More »
We’ll start with the Twitter-sponsored portion of Smack: Over the weekend Michael Beasley closed his Twitter account after he took some heat (no pun intended) for posting a pic that may or may not have been bags of weed. Nothing too major, but this is the exact kind of thing that kept Beasley from being a surefire #1 overall pick a year ago. No disrespect to Derrick Rose, but you take a lefty power forward with Beasley’s game and Tim Duncan or Blake Griffin’s personality, and the only thing he needs to worry about is getting a suit to match the team colors of whoever has the top pick. Instead, this is almost like watching the early part of Lamar Odom’s career replay itself … Ron Artest used Twitter as his bulletin board to spice up the next Lakers/Rockets game. Read More »
Now that the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas is over, it’s time to take a look back. The following All-Summer League teams consists of two guards, two forwards, and one center with consideration of at least four games played. That means guys like Eric Gordon and Anthony Morrow who went out to Vegas to simply get buckets weren’t considered because they only played in a few games, while the players we selected were all key components to their summer league squad the whole week. Read More »
As much as we make summer league about the rookies, this year’s Vegas version was stocked with young “vets” whose play could be a sign of big things to come when the real games start. Nick Young, Anthony Randolph, Jason Thompson, even Adam Morrison and Marcus Williams all put in work, but when the VSL wrapped up yesterday, it was rookie Blake Griffin who was named MVP … Blake averaged 19 points and 10 boards in his five games with the JV Clippers, and in his finale put up 16 and eight in a matchup with older brother Taylor Griffin (4 pts, 6 rebs) and the Suns. We’re probably not going out on a limb saying that was the first and last game those two ever play where they’re across from each other in the starting lineup. Read More »
I’m not going to lie - if you had told me when he was drafted in the 2006-07 Draft that three years later Adam Morrison would be in serious, serious danger of being out of the League, I would’ve said you were crazy. Did I think he was a lock to be an NBA star? Definitely not. But at the very least, I saw him as being a valuable scorer in some team’s rotation.
Yet here we are; Morrison is at the end of his rookie contract and he is in the Vegas Summer League playing for his NBA life. Read More »
